Tuesday, September 11, 2018

Summer Uses for a Cold Cookstove

My last post was about Marjorie the Margin Gem cookstove coming out of her summer retirement.  I got to thinking about that.  In reality, even though she had not been fired since May, it wasn't as if she had just been taking up space.  In the summer, she becomes a rather versatile kitchen cabinet--versatile because she doesn't mind if I set hot things on her.

I also mentioned that we don't use her for baking for Monday Markets anymore.  During the first season of Monday Markets, she did all of the baking because she had the only functional oven we had at that time.  You can read about that in this post.

Now, during Monday Market baking, Marjorie serves as a proofing center while her oven stores some large pieces of cast iron cookware.

Marjorie holding a small fraction of the sweet rolls baked yesterday
while they were rising.

During the approximately eight months of the year that the wood cookstove is being fired, the roles of our two kitchen stoves are reversed, and the modern gas stove becomes an elaborate cooling rack and storage area.  I also have a large, homemade cutting board that fits almost perfectly over the gas stove top and makes a nice addition to our counter space.

Using a cold wood cookstove for storage is not a new idea at all.  I used to know of an elderly couple in Macedonia, Iowa, who had an old wood cookstove in their kitchen.  When the lady of the house wanted to remove it, her husband opposed the idea because he didn't know where he would keep all of his medications if not in the cookstove.  I've also heard of people using cookstoves to store groceries and pet food. 

When I first moved back into our house from the little house up the hill, the chimney was not yet ready to hook a cookstove back into it.  Thus, my old Qualified range (which was only a little over a year old at that time) sat patiently waiting to be used again.  I used it as a microwave stand because the idea of the wood cookstove "supporting" the modern technology of the microwave oven appealed to my warped sense of irony . . . Yup, I'm that much of a nerd.

For those of you who have wood cookstoves in your kitchen which are not used year round, please fill up the comments below and tell us what you do with your stove in the off-season.

3 comments:

  1. Because our stove is right inside the door it becomes a repository for summer garden produce.

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  2. inside, sugar, candy, flour anything I don't want ants or critters to get into. on top, cast iron pans, dog food basket with treats etc.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Yes, I do the same thing! Canned goods, waiting for seals to set during the 24 hours, resting spots for baking dishes, etc.

    ReplyDelete